These pictures are from the first couple weeks of the trip from Vancouver, WA to Bullhead City, AZ.
At the hotel in Vancouver just before leaving for Newport.
Leaving my sister's house in Newport. The trip really begins.
We had a great ride through an old logging road with a stop to see Alsea Falls.
While we were in the area we stopped into the Alpine, OR cemetery. My dad's memorial is here along with a number of other extended Rhodes family members.
I took this pic flying back to Vancouver from Las Vegas on May 17th. Crater Lake was still in winter mode at that point. What a difference a couple of months can make.
Crater Lake and Wizard Island.
The first of most likely many obligatory motorcycle shots :-)
We had a great day riding around Crater Lake
Waterfall on the outside of the crater rim.
Pickings were slim at the Mazama Campground store. I have to say that this is my first can of wine. I can't say it was great, but after a day's riding it tasted pretty good to me.
This is at the Hat Creek RV park campground. It's where we wound up after leaving Crater lake. The creek made a perfect beer cooler while we relaxed after the day's ride.
Sulfur springs in Lassen Volcanic NP. Many of our picks from Lassen are on our Go Pro's. I have to figure out how to extract and post those next.
The first roadside medical treatment. I have the 1/2 inch wide strip of skin on my right wrist that seems to always be exposed to the sun because the sleeve of my riding jacket pulls back as I ride. I was starting to get sun burned on that little strip of skin. So a quick stop on the side of the road and some athletic tape from our med kit and problem solved. LOL
Mt. Wheeler in Great Basin National Park
Mt Wheeler - Great Basin National Park
And one more of Mt. Wheeler.
Looking down on the valley from the top of the Mt Wheeler road.
A part of Capitol Reef National Park while riding out of Torrey, UT toward Grand Junction, CO.
More of Capitol Reef. We plan on returning to this park when we come back north once we leave Bullhead City.
One of the gas stations in Hanksville, UT. The convenience store part of the stations is built into the cliff. This is across the street from the gas station I left my wallet at in 2012 when riding with the boys and my friend Darrell. I didn't realize it until we stopped at the turn to Moab 77 miles down the road. On that trip I sent Darrell and the boys on to Moab while I went back to Hanksville to retrieve my wallet. In 105 degree heat that day.
This van or one like it has been at Papa Joe's Gas and Go at the turn to Moab for at least 10 years. I have a picture like this from the trip with the boys in 2012. Although I think it's different van now.
Our tires were almost out of tread by the time we reached Grand Junction, CO. Since we were heading to an off road riding class I thought we better have some tread on the tires. In order to get the dealer to change the tires for us we had to remove the wheels and them put them back on the bikes once the tires had been changed. This is in the parking lot of the Grand Junction BMW dealer.
The Colorado training ground camp for RawHyde Adventures.
More of camp. The big yellow and white truck is the kitchen for the camp.
There were two different classes being held the weekend we were there. A grand total of maybe 30 bikes between the two classes.
Our view from the RawHyde camp.
The valley view as we came in to Buena Vista , CO.
Great Sand Dunes National Park
Great Sand Dunes panarama.
We started climbing the dunes, but our weekend of riding classes wore us out. We only made it about a quarter of the way up. Although it might be more accurate to say that dad wore out and Neil didn't want to keep going by himself LOL.
Lots of people hiking on the dunes. Dune sledding and boarding were the main activities.
The view up the valley from the ruins at Chimney Rocks National Monument, Colorado.
When we turned into Chimney Rocks National Monument I assumed it would just have an interpretive display about the geology of the rock formation. As it turns out there is quite an archeological site here as well.
Atop the hill is an array of ruins that were part of an astronomical observatory kind of like Stonehenge The ruins are set up to track the sun as it rises and sets between the two chimney rock formations..
Chimney Rock National Monument
it was a 2.5 mile ride up a very wash boarded road then a short hike up to the ruins.
This is from a pullout we stopped at on Colorado Hwy 160 just after we went over Wolf Creek Pass. Its a 10,000 foot pass and we were cold so on the way down from the pass when we saw a view like this it was time to pull off and warm up a bit.
We had to have an official "We made it" picture. 😆
This is another national monument we just saw a sign for and decided to take a detour and check out. Ruins at Hovenweep National Monument.
More Hovenweep.
Hovenweep
And Hovenweep again.
Twin Rocks - Bluff, UT
A panorama of Twin Rocks from the back side.
Entering Monument Valley.
Monument Valley
Monument Valley
And Monument Valley again.
Sunset from our camp site in Page, AZ.
Horseshoe Bend - Page, AZ
We took pictures for a mom and daughter so they returned the favor and took our picture.
There are actually 3 kayakers on the river floating it in this picture. If I tried to zoom in so you could see them all you could see is dots on water, but it does look like a nice section of river to float.
Neil found these during a gas stop and found them amusing. That said he didn't buy them and tell me what they tasted like either, haha.